image courtesy of Microsoft Corp.
In my last post, I raised some concerns that I had around textbooks in the 1:1 environment.
They’re expensive and I couldn’t – and I still can’t – see the benefit that come from students having them in all subjects.
Being responsible for the eLearning program at my school, I see this issue as being one that will potentially become the “sleeper”, just waiting quietly to emerge and smack me on the head.
So in the search for a solution to this conundrum, I set myself some holiday homework – to write a Year 9 Maths textbook. The idea came from a colleague – Brad Kersing (@MrKersing) – who had been looking at and testing a new way to deliver the Australian Curriculum to years 7 – 10 students. In some of his classes, he was using Microsoft OneNote to support this.
In my conversations with faculty leaders, it became clear that the conventional textbook was a convenient resource for practice problems (particularly in Mathematics), experiments (Science) and really, not much else. These leaders saw the benefits of moving to an ‘eBook’ structure, but I felt that they were unclear on how this would change the dynamic of the classroom for the teacher and the student. Common questions were, ‘Will students still have to write?’ and ‘Where will I get questions from?’ Teachers are still using the textbook as the primary resource of their class – even with 1:1 computer access, giving this up may be a challenge.
To my mind, a OneNote textbook could be one solution. So I wrote one.
It has been a remarkably simple undertaking. I have tried, as much as possible, to create a ‘safe’ notebook that does not include too many bells and whistles. This is deliberate as I do not want to this to scare off those teachers and students who are not comfortable with technology. The notebook is structured much like a regular Mathematics text, with ‘Chapters’ broken into topic sections, worked examples and standard ‘exercises’ (see below)
image courtesy of David Simpson
OneNote lends itself to our 1:1 program because we have been able to use the NSSCF (aka “Rudd money”) to purchase the Lenovo X220T for each of our Year 9 and Year 10 students (500+ students). These devices are convertible laptop-tablets that are multitouch capable, making the functionality of OneNote as a digital notebook really come alive. I see students annotating their own version of the textbook, creating a dynamic document that becomes so much more than just a source of questions.
Each area has the Learning Intentions detailed, these having been taken straight from the new Australian Curriculum. This allows a greater level of transparency for students to see where the topic fits into the greater scheme of their learning and also supports teachers in meeting their reporting requirements. Integration with the Ultranet Learning tasks has also been achieved – each group of ‘exercises’ or individual activity can be assigned by the teacher as a learning task, requiring students to submit their completed work into the Ultranet for assessment.
image courtesy of David Simpson
Students can use the writing functionality to take more detailed notes directly into their text, meaning less time copying notes off the whiteboard and more time applying the knowledge with their peers and teachers.
image courtesy of David Simpson
In attempt to move this interactive text a *little* deeper into the Web 2.0 world, links to video tutorials have been included at all opportunities. These links open to YouTube clips from the school’s channel (Jing tutorials made by teachers), Khan Academy, plus many others. There are also links to interactive activities that exist on the Web so that students can apply their knowledge in different ways. Ideally, I’d like to be able to insert these videos and activities directly into an i-frame system within OneNote – allowing students to complete them without leaving the Notebook – but this ability is not yet supported. 
Overall, I am happy with the OneNote text as it currently fits together. In the new term I will sit down with the Math faculty leaders and seek their feedback on the document and hopefully have it available to students for the 2nd Semester of 2012 for a real test of its effectiveness! Any feedback, questions, comments are warmly welcomed!
image courtesy of opensourceway @ Flickr
In our journey to a 1:1 environment, there has been more than a few issues that have created a greater amount of concern than could have been predicted. Fitting the BYO devices into lockers (required a maximum size of 15″ to ensure that they could fit), knowing which device belongs to which student (UV markers, asset tags, name tags), ensuring that students can back-up their devices (specific how-to classes)… The list goes on.
The most recent issue? Textbooks.
They’re too expensive for parents to justify buying them and a computer. They’re heavy. Will they be used?
Common questions and all reasonable. So I undertook some research to see what the market has in regards to eBooks as replacements for the physical book. Having looked at all of the major publishers I have come to the conclusion that the cost factor is still going to be in play.
Take, for example, the Jacaranda Unit 1 & 2 Physics eBook - costed at $49.95 for an “electronic version of the textbook and a complementary set of targeted digital resources”. The physical book costs $79.95 and includes the eBook. Now, if I purchase the eBook – at $50 – I can’t resell it at the end of the year, so there is no opportunity to recoup any of the cost. If, on the other hand, I buy the physical textbook and the eBook, I can keep the physical book at home and then resell it at the end of the year, as new, for about $40. The person who buys the book will get the Textbook and the registration key(with 6 months access remaining) for the eBook at $9.95 cheaper than buying the eBook alone.
Jacaranda are not alone either, Cambridge sells the Essential Mathematic Methods 1 & 2 Interactive textbook for $58.95.
Pearson sell the Heinemann Biology 2 Enhanced Pearson reader for $55.95.
The short and sharp is – there is no cost benefit of going to the eBooks. The publishers know this.
What they are banking on is that schools will not move away from textbooks all together. Teachers will rely on the textbooks for direction, questions and revision materials. Publishers are putting their money on teachers not evolving beyond the status quo.
What if we ditch textbooks all together? Will the students be at a disadvantage? Study Designs clearly set out what is expected to be covered throughout the Units so there is no reason why a school wouldn’t sit down as a group and write their own, tailored, textbook using programs such as the flexbooks at CK12.org , Kno applications or Apple’s iBooks textbooks.
Methinks that it’s time to sit down and create our own resources to replace textbooks. Once created, they could be easily updated, managed and refocused to address the changing demands of the curriculum.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/useless.jpg
In an attempt to get a better grounding in the challenges facing the implementation of eLearning in schools, I have done much reading. Most of it has resonated with my own experiences both in the classroom and in the wider school community. In particular, I have been interested in the specific challenges that Mathematics teachers face in embracing technological advances which, at first glance, seem to have very little to offer their teaching.
The following points are ideas/outcomes/realities that appear to me to be universal in relation to implementing eLearning components into the Mathematics curriculum:
1. Implementing technology-rich mathematical tasks into the classroom is difficult.
While technology has potential to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics, research indicates that teachers struggle in their efforts to implement technology-rich mathematical tasks in their classrooms. Effective technology integration in mathematics requires teachers to be able to apply their classroom knowledge related to mathematics content, pedagogies, educational technologies and the interplay between those aspects of knowledge.
Schools that have successfully overcome this challenge have, typically, had three aspects that I could identify as similar:
- ICT Leaders were not Administrators but Classroom Teachers with a fractional time allowance for the responsibility role. This structure allowed the role to ‘straddle’ the Admin/Teacher divide, resulting in in-class demonstrations of effective ICT use for other teachers to observe and model.
- ICT Leaders identified early adopters who, although not necessarily technologically literate, were keen to try new things. These individuals exuded a positive attitude toward the change process, assisting in implementation. These early adopters also participated in internal Professional Development opportunities, offered to all Mathematics teachers to assist in overcoming the challenges of the change.
- ICT leaders also removed editing rights to current intranet systems and mandated authentication to new models or systems. For example, all Mathematics staff were required to ensure students had – and used – logins to the Mathletics site, whilst traditional paper homework books were no longer on the student book list.
2. Web-based homework outperforms paper-based homework.
In mathematics, homework offers an important opportunity for students to practice the procedural aspect of computation, particularly in the middle years when fundamental concepts are being taught. Student motivation to attempt, complete or extend upon this homework is, however, a consistent challenge for Mathematics teachers. Whilst there are many methods for addressing the challenge (Flipped Classrooms are just one example) of homework, research into web-based homework (WBH) has been shown that students were more likely to attempt and to receive higher homework grades with WBH than with Pen-Paper Homework (PPH).
In addition to this, studies indicated that when students were divided based on incoming math skill level, the analysis showed that low-skilled students who used online homework exhibited significantly higher mathematical achievement than low-skilled students who used textbook homework. In another study, students who were given WBH often took the opportunity to complete 2nd, even 3rd attempts. Students who completed traditional methods rarely attempted the task for a second time and never for a third.
Within the WBH group of a third study, while male students gained more confidence than females, females expressed stronger opinions on the fact that instant scores and feedback helped them overcome difficulties in mathematics problem -solving. Though some limitations still exist with written explanations and partial credits, in comparison with the traditional assessment, the web-based assessment and practice tool in this study substantially helped students build motivation and elevates the meaning of learning and doing mathematics with the use of web-based technology.
3. Technology itself does not improve student outcomes.
A common belief – and excuse for not embracing technology in the classroom – is that it has no direct impact on student outcomes in standardized testing regimes. This belief is actually supported by research such as Bonham, Deardorff & Beichner (2003), Cole & Todd (2003) and Smith & Ferguson (2005).
Interestingly, however, each of these studies also identified that the integration of new technologies, web-based homework (with its’ associated feedback – see point 4) and online delivery methods increased student motivation to complete tasks both in and out of class. In particular, it was noted by Tzu-Hua Wang in his research that the use of dynamic web-based technologies – technologies that provided instantaneous, graduated, feedback with adaptive question sequences – resulted in students who were most lacking in mathematical problem-solving knowledge achieving significantly improved results.
Until the standardized testing regime that students currently experience at all levels of their education evolves, Mathematics Teachers are going to grapple with the dual challenges of a cohort that require greater involvement of technology to motivate them and an assessment program that requires 20th Century competencies. To overcome these challenges, teachers will need to develop learning tasks that incorporate the ‘best of both worlds’.
4. Technology-based delivery provides more regular, and timely, feedback on performance.
Regular, timely feedback is fundamental. John Hattie, in his meta-analysis of over 800 research studies, found that feedback had the greatest effect size on student academic outcomes. In mathematics, this comes as no surprise. Students flourish when they are able to experience success in their work. Mathematics that is delivered in a web-based format allows for this type of functionality and can provide the richest growth to students’ understandings.
5. Students are more willing/able to self-direct learning and adapt mathematical strategies online.
Mathematics is a unique subject area in that it encompasses abstract thinking, requires sequential development of concepts, has a need for instructor modelling of problem-solving, has many visual-spatial components and has a unique set of symbols and notation. All of these areas are relevant to Mathematics Teachers whether they are online or offline.
As discussed by Gordon-Smith, Torres-Ayala & Heindel, eLearning instructional design in Mathematics requires that all of the above areas be addressed. Only in very recent years have students and teachers of Mathematics had the ability to develop and access technology that can do these things. The results are – in my honest opinion – truly revolutionary. Khan Academy, Purplemath, Microsoft Mathematics 4.0, Maths Online are all resources that have been developed to specifically cover the unique areas of Mathematics content. These resources allow students to broaden the ‘experts’ that they utilize in understanding a concept. No longer is the teacher the only ‘Sage on Stage’ – much of the information that the student requires can be accessed on YouTube – when and where they need it.
As technology advances in its’ ability to do more, students are demonstrating a greater willingness (or ability?) to diversify the strategies that they use to problem-solve mathematical problems. This ability is seen in regular video game usage. The idea that students attention spans are adversely affected by the use of video games flies in the face of the evidence – parents around the globe will support this! – of students playing online games for hours on end. This type of engagement, even in the situation of repeated ‘failure’, shows students adapting their strategies to achieve a desirable end result. In part this works because, as these authors attest, students feel that they are not being judged on their responses, nor are there real world consequences.
These points are by no means comprehensive in their detail but rather, they identify and articulate the key challenges facing all educators who are looking to integrate eLearning components into their Mathematics teaching.
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courtesy of jrwooley6 @ flickr.com
In a recent post, I discussed the value of relationships between students and their teachers and how these relationships were founded upon trust, respect and positive interactions in both directions.
As the new eLearning Leading Teacher at my school, my role in 2012 has expanded to encompass a much greater level of involvement with my teaching colleagues. This involvement will have me working closely with teachers who, in many cases, will have years – if not decades – of classroom experience beyond my own. This difference could be considered a significant challenge – particularly as 2012 heralds the beginning of a major change at the school with the student cohort having 1 to 1 computer access for the first time.
Building effective working relationships requires authenticity, persistence and no small amount of time. In order to achieve the kind of whole school cultural change that a move to a 1 to 1 environment requires, I feel that I am going to have to take a multi-faceted approach that includes some of the following:
- using an partnership-based instructional coaching model (like this) to work with individual teachers on how they plan to get the most benefit from the 1 to 1 environment.
- leverage existing collegiate development teams to enhance the ‘cross-pollination’ of ideas between staff and faculties
- including ICT integration in the collegiate observation program and annual teacher appraisal process
- empower students to drive the changes that they would like to happen in their classrooms.
- clearly and transparently communicate the eLearning targets of the school to the wider school community (especially parent groups).
I anticipate that 2012 is going to be a challenging year. Building and maintaining authentic relationships with colleagues will be key to ensuring that this important change process is successfully implemented by every teacher, every class, every day.
- My Children
For a student, the end of the academic year is always a time of mixed emotions. Excitement and relief that the year is finally over, yet with some fear and trepidation of what the future holds. Irrespective of whether a student is moving onto higher education after Year 12 or moving into the next year level, these emotions always bring a particular challenge to the later months of the year.
As an educator, seeing students develop and progress through their learning journey brings me great pride – it is one of the key reasons that I became a teacher.
The importance of a good relationship and rapport with students cannot be overstated. If the classroom is truly to be a place of learning, students must feel that they are respected, heard and safe. Without these conditions, many students will fail to thrive.
Academic research has shown time and again that the achievement of students is positively affected by the strength and quality of the relationship that they have with their teacher (Midgley et al. 1989, Decker, Dona & Christenson 2006, Skinner & Belmont 1993). For students in low socio-economic areas and for students with dysfunctional home environments, this relationship is particularly valuable in making them feel valued and secure.
In his meta-analysis of over 800 educational studies, John Hattie found that some of the biggest effects on student outcomes were from what teachers do in the classroom. Hattie’s ideas are well known and I don’t wish to detail them here other than to say that the key improvement strategies that he proposes require a respectful relationship with the student as a foundation. Without this mutual trust and respect, the value of feedback is limited, a safe environment where errors are allowed is not created and knowing when each student is successful is almost impossible.
It must be said that some students – and some teachers – are able to exist within the school environment without a strong focus on the relationships that they are constructing with those around them. These students are often those that will benefit the most from the extra effort they require to develop a positive relationship with a teacher.
As we begin a new teaching year (in Australia, at least!), what better opportunity do we have to remind ourselves of the ‘soft-skills’ that we require as educators to make a real difference in our students’ lives? I challenge you to articulate to yourself how you are planning on ensuring that the environment that you create in your school is fostering positive, respectful and powerful relationships.
As 2011 draws to a close, I’ve found a brief moment to step away from the craziness of the festive season and reflect on what has transpired.
2011 began full of promise and, as the inevitable march of time continues, I am pleased to look back and note the learning that has occurred.
I began this year with a decision to actively use and promote social media in my classrooms and teaching practice. Facebook and Twitter have revolutionized the way with which I communicate and relate with both my students and my PLN. The relationships that I have been able to forge have deeply marked my teaching philosophy and continue to challenge my thinking at every turn.
This blog has survived it’s first year of existence – a challenge in the environment of a time-poor teacher! Being able to share my thoughts and discuss the ramifications of learning ideas has enabled a greater level of discovery than I originally believed possible. I have met many interesting people and have had many interesting discussions on education in the 21st century – many of my fellow bloggers have shared their experiences and this has inspired me to challenge the status quo of my own career.
In September this year, I took a leap into the unknown and applied for a Leading Teacher position at my school. For those of you outside Australia, the objective of leading teachers is to improve the skill, knowledge and performance of the teaching workforce in a school or group of schools and to improve the curriculum program of a school. In the case of my own school, the position was specifically tagged as an eLearning Leading Teacher – charged with implementing a one-to-one computing program across all 1500+ students in the school, engaging staff to embrace a new tool in their classrooms and ensuring parents were on board with the potential benefits to their child’s education. Being successful in this endeavour has given me a momentous opportunity to challenge ‘the way things are done around here’ – and I’m looking forward to it!
As we head into 2012, I’d like to take this chance to thank those who have assisted in this continuing journey. I look forward to fostering this relationship into the future.
Image courtesy of ProjectFAV @ flickr.com
I would classify Apple Inc. as a successful enterprise. They appear to be doing alright for themselves. Steve Jobs – who passed away today after battling pancreatic cancer – played a significant role in traversing the gap between the technology and the general consumer.
Apple Inc.’s success, however, comes not from selling technology, because there are plenty of businesses doing that, but instead from selling the idea that their products were a lifestyle choice and helped to improve the quality of the owner’s life. The selling of an idea or perception is not new – think Kevin07, President Obama, weight-loss programs – the list goes on. Apple Inc. advertisements were about what you could do with their products, rather than what the products themselves were made up of. Apple Inc. made technology not about the hardware specs but about how you and I, the consumers, could use their products to better enjoy your life and communicate and interact with others.
In education, we’re not about selling anything – are we? Students are not our ‘clients’, parents are not ‘shareholders’ just as teachers aren’t our ‘customers’… Or are they?
I would argue that what we need to be doing more of to eventually improve the learning experiences and opportunities for students is – shock!, horror! – sell our products in a better way. Our products are many and they are diverse; an engaging and challenging curriculum, a safe environment that promotes diversity and tolerance, an organisation that fosters respect, co-curricular activities that expand horizons, professional learning opportunities that are relevant and timely…
Narrowing this discussion to technology- I’m interested to discover how we can better ‘sell’ the benefits of technology in supporting the teaching and learning that is happening. In my opinion, the best way to achieve this is to focus our attention on the purpose and ease of use of the technology available. To better engage students with their learning experiences we need to better define how and why we use technology. In some cases, we need to totally change our own perspective of technology so that we can get a better handle on how it might improve the learning experience for our students.
This means looking past the idea of having the ‘best of the best’ technology and having a closer look at how we use the resources to improve students learning experiences. What is the purpose of the resource? What processes do we have in place for using it to generate the maximum benefits for students? Can the resource be adequately supported?
This idea intimately involves the teachers themselves. Getting the technology is one thing, getting the time, policies and support right for them to use it to its greatest potential is a whole other problem.
I think the answer to this problem lies in the ‘selling’ analogy again.. Businesses like Bunnings Hardware and Apple Inc. offer 1:1 support, workshops and lessons that allow interested people to get advice on how they can use the products to achieve their goals. This type of approach may work in the school environment – particularly if it is students doing a share of the ‘teaching’. Imagine teachers attending a small group workshop on using Collaborative Spaces in the Ultranet, the session being run by students. The potential for a real learning community to develop is very exciting.
Ponder these questions:
Does technology enhance the quality of learning in your classroom?
Do you collaborate and learn from your colleagues, share resources, and access the collective knowledge and resources on the Internet?
Are your lessons more enriching and engaging through your use of interaction, multimedia, and creative authoring tools?
Are your students more inquisitive, analytical, and creative as they use technology to collaborate, create, and apply their learning in real world contexts?
Image courtesy of Cayusa www.flickr.com
I remember doing homework when I was a high school student. I was one of those kids – and had two of those parents – who got into homework pretty much as soon as I got home (or else!). We lived a fair way from anywhere, so afternoon sport or meeting with friends didn’t really happen.
I remember the type of homework I used to get as well. In the junior years, it was either a worksheet, an assignment or a ‘Left-hand side/Right-hand side’ Mathematics set. In High School, it was worksheets and exercises – working up to our major Common Assessment Tasks (CATS) and exams.
Now that I am an educator, the shoe is on the other foot, you might say. Whenever I set homework, I can’t help but feel this twinge of guilt that I am inflicting the same tedious processes on my own students that were inflicted upon me all those years ago.
Hang on a second, though. Homework is important. Students can use homework as an opportunity to practice what they have learnt in class. They can expand their understanding of the topic covered in the classroom by reading and comprehending a relevant extension of the in-class activity. They learn how to organise themselves and their time, they learn the skills on how to revise and take appropriate notes to make exam revision easier…
As I write the above, a sense of unease comes over me. Why do I expect students to complete such important tasks as those mentioned above at home? What if they get stuck – what if they can’t answer a question or understand a paragraph? Do they ask their parents? What if they don’t know?
I recently had a student and his parents come in for a meeting about the progress that was being made this year. This student is a smart kid but easily distracted and especially hard on himself. He doesn’t have the greatest self-esteem and has quite low academic resilience. During the meeting, I asked the student what I could do to help him feel more comfortable in asking questions during class time? His response was, ‘Give me more time to practice my maths with you around. If I can’t do something, I’d like to be able to ask you.’
Mum and Dad looked at me with a shrug, ‘We can’t do his level Maths anymore – it’s been so long!’
This episode got me thinking – how can I create more time in a 48 minute Mathematics session?
The concept of a flipped-class isn’t new. I first heard about it during an Elluminate session in mid-2010 with Ramsay Mussallam but have only recently tried the concept in my own classroom. The idea is simple – rather than spending class time teaching a concept, record a short video of the explicit teaching and have the students watch this for homework. While the students are watching the video, the can take notes into their exercise books just as if they were in class. If they don’t understand something, they can rewind the video and watch it again.
What does this do? It frees up class time for practicing concepts with a teacher handy for questions. Using this method in my middle years mathematics class, I have found that the classes become a richer collaborative learning session. Rather than spending 10-15 minutes teaching a concept, this time is used working individually and in small groups to apply the previous nights’ homework. What I have found particularly valuable is that the greater amount of time spent in this way has allowed even the most reticent mathematicians in my class to enjoy the success of understanding and ‘getting it right’.
This process is not all smiles and roses, however. I am continually busy in class time – never for a moment am I able to stand back and watch. If I’m not working with a student one-on-one, I’m running a small ‘tute-group’ on one side of the class. I worry that some students don’t have the patience to wait for me to get to their question. I heavily promote the use of alternative resources within the classroom – be it another student, or one of the recently available wi-fi enabled iPads. I am very keen to reduce the students’ reliance on any teacher for knowledge. It is important to me that students feel the ‘pull’ of curiosity and the resilience that comes with occasional difficulty and setbacks. In future iterations of my flipped class, I hope to introduce more avenues for students to explore their own learning, rather than relying on their teacher.
My hope is that by setting the students’ homework in video format, I give them the opportunity to take the explicit teaching at their own pace. By using class time for application work and collaborative learning, I hope to demonstrate to students the benefits of the social learning environment. I intend to assess this method of teaching over the coming months and ascertain if it has a benefit on the students overall comprehension. Here’s hoping!
Image Courtesy of www.piday.org
With the ongoing discussion about teacher performance pay versus professional pay heating up, I was interested to hear at a recent conference some of the passionate views of teachers supporting these initiatives.
I don’t particularly want to get into the nitty-gritty of this complex situation other than to say that, if performance is measured using standardised testing programs (NAPLAN, etc), then are we not encouraging a system of teaching towards a test? And if Mathematics is one of the subjects assessed using these systems, how can we ensure that we don’t move too far away from the power of relevant, conceptual, inquiry-based practices?
Personally, I like Mathematics and the model of the world that it presents. I find it a rewarding challenge to develop learning programs that allow each student in my class to explore their own viewpoint of the world through the lens of numbers. I also love the moments when students realise that Mathematics is just a model, and not always representative of truth. (See this post by Paul Salomon for a wonderful post on real student learning – and getting it ‘wrong’!)
In my class, I have just completed an inquiry-based task that asked students to consider the following question; “Does Melbourne have enough water?”
This question prompted two and a half weeks of investigation and testing. Students covered topics as diverse as capacity, significant figures, percentages, decimals, exponents, rates of change – just to name a few. The developed their calculator-using skills and had to carefully think through their rationale before answering the question in light of what they had researched. No two answers were the same because no two students had made the same set of assumptions. One student has determined that Melbourne could accommodate just under 100 million people if each person used less than 10 litres per day – as many do in Africa, he pointed out.
So, to my initial question – What does the future of Maths teaching look like? My experience of older students is that they dislike Mathematics, finding it too difficult, the teachers disengaging and the method that it is delivered in not particularly relevant to their lives. Despite reassurances that they are capable of being successful at and – heaven forbid – enjoying mathematics, they depart senior maths classes at an alarming rate.
Have we caused students to view Mathematics as irrelevant? Considering the ubiquity of the Mathematical processes – I doubt it. Students know which Mathematical processes are important/relevant to their current lives. I think that the more-likely scenario is that, over the years, students have had such poor experiences of Mathematics that they have become disillusioned. If this is were indeed to be the case, I can’t really blame them for switching off – I would find two worked examples on the white board and then 15 practice questions with 15 more for homework as boring as watching paint dry!
If we are to re-engage students with Mathematics, I believe we need to be constantly and consistently striving toward tasks that are collaborative, problem-based and relevant. This does not mean that explicit teaching goes out the window. Rather, that explicit teaching should support the immediate needs of the students as pertaining to the task that they’re working on. Mathematics should be viewed as a cross-curricula activity – applied physics, technology, design, fashion, geography, the list goes on. Students can – and should be – engaged with Mathematics through their interests, rather than always through the textbook.
Image courtesy of theirhistory @ Flickr
Over the past two years I’ve taught an all-boys class in a co-educational school. It has been a learning experience par excellence - at times horrifying, mostly boisterous, rarely tense, full of laughter, and – very often – pure mayhem.
Boys often cop a bit of a bad rap in education. They’re too noisy, too fidgety, too ‘naughty’. Any educator will tell you the horror stories of the ‘bad’ boy that they’ve taught in their time. My personal favourite is what I call ‘The Theory of J’ – apparently, any boy with a J-starting name (Jayden, Jack, Jarrod, etc) is going to be a ratbag. Or is it that the ratbags are always named J-something? I guess my son James is a lost cause then.. Anyway, I digress..
Boys classes are not only fun but can also be places of incredible learning and dynamic thinking. In my experience, the key to a productive boys class is the three B’s – boundaries, behaviour and buddies.
The first ‘B’ – boundaries – is probably the most important facet of my classes. On the first day with any new group of students (all boys or co-ed), I always spend some time discussing and setting-out what the common expectations for the class will be. This process ensures that everyone in the classroom knows that they have a part to play in the success of the learning group. In a boys class, this process also establishes an initial set of boundaries and creates a sense of safety. Boys need to feel safe in the classroom – for many, the classroom represents one of the most threatening environments in their lives. Boundaries also represent something to challenge, and challenging boundaries is an integral part of a teenage boys’ development. In challenging boundaries, boys are not being ‘naughty’, but investigating – investigating the soundness of the boundaries, whether they are flexible or rigid. Certain boundaries have to be flexible, especially as the relationship between student and teacher deepens, as this encourages trust and good faith. However, if all boundaries are flexible, boys will at best ignore them, or at worst stampede all over them like a herd of brumbies. Consequences are imperative and must be enforced consistently. This demonstrates that there is a fairness and an environment of respect in the classroom. To support this, a process of restorative practice (see Youtube clip here) as outlined by Dr Ramon Lewis, is imperative. If a boy thinks that he can never ‘rejoin the group’ following a challenge to boundaries – he will either become non-responsive and despondent or, worse, continually try to seek attention – negative attention, if need be.
As outlined above, boundaries lead directly into the second ‘B’ – behaviour. Boys can be bad, but they can also be delightful. If a boy feels safe, if he is aware of the boundaries to his current environment, he is best positioned for learning. Managing difficult behaviours in an all boys class is, in my opinion, pretty simple. It’s all about the relationship that is developed with individual students and the class as a whole. Knowing something about each student, taking an interest in their life outside of school, sharing a joke – these small acts can be very powerful. Even the most disruptive, belligerent child has something about them that can be harnessed to help manage behaviour. Boys especially are very keen to impress. If you can take an interest in them that is beyond the classroom, they will strive to impress you – often with good behaviour! Another aspect to behaviour that I feel is fundamental is the impact of my own on the students. Role modelling the actions, the respect and the expectations is critical. Symbolic leadership is very seductive in an all-male environment. Boys want consistency, honesty, humour and fragility. They experience emotion and need to see that emotion can be expressed positively and safely.
The final ‘B’ are the buddies. Buddies play a big influence on a boys’ mindset and attitude to learning. Two boys may not be ‘friends’ in the traditional sense, but by the simple commonality of male-ness, there is a potential bond that can be fostered into something positive. I conduct all of my classes with a focus on teamwork and collaboration – trying to create an environment where everybody feels that they can contribute to the creation of something bigger than themselves. In my experience, this creates a group of individuals who – although they may not be ‘friends’ or ‘mates’ – can work towards a goal as buddies in learning.
